Monday, August 25, 2008

Some snapshots from Life in Our New House

Toby, my constant companion in the garden, knows he's not supposed to be lying in the raspberry patch, so when he's caught, he first attempts to camouflage himself in the leaves,


and when that proves unsuccessful, resorts to looking tragically adorable.


Meimei keeps me company while I'm working at the kitchen table, and is clearly astounded by the quantity of plums I am about to pit for the dehydrator.


She considers whether they would be good to eat, or at least to bat around the floor.


Curious about what's outside her new digs, she peers out the dining room window, and we can see her from the kitchen.


New smells are as crucial to information-gathering as new sights.


This was the first of many plum harvests.


This was the first of many resulting plum tortes.


This is my reading nook.


This is how my reading nook looks when I feel like sharing it.


This is the view looking up from the reading nook, into the fig tree.


This is some produce brought over to Our New House from Jam Guy's old place, which were growing on his deck in EarthBoxes: The little ones are Sungold tomatoes, which are amazing and life-changing and my new favorite tomato; then there's some kind of plum tomato; some kind of orange tomato (I think they're called Jeune Flamme, or something romantic like that); lots of lemon cucumbers.


This is Toby and his friend Deacon the Puppy wrestling enthusiastically in the living room. You can't tell that this photo is not a random blob of fuzziness, but I promise, it is Toby and Deacon.


These are some gorgeous flowers my dad kindly sent over as a graduation present and a taste of home, which are very appreciated. They are in a pitcher made by Jam Guy.


These are the vintage suitcases we bought at two different yard sales last Sunday (for a grand total of, I think, $5.50) that we'll use for clothing storage.


This is the vintage birdseye-maple dresser that we picked up for a song on Craigslist, with some flowers from the garden in a Cinzano Baby bottle from a hotel-room minibar in Milan where I stayed one night with Giles, who that day pretended falsely to a stranger to speak neither English nor French nor Italian in order to prevent being evangelized, or solicited, or something.


This is the wheelbarrow, the weeds, and the soon-to-be-resuscitated vegetable garden area. We do have our work cut out for us, but it was a vegetable garden for 30 years, so the soil is beautiful and raring to go. Over to the left is some year-old swiss chard gone mad, probably from lonesomeness. We'll fix that.

4 comments:

Jennica Goo said...

Omg, your plum torte looks AMAZING. It seriously looks like it's straight out of a gourmet food magazine. I can't WAIT to sample it!

Also, I am so coveting your backyard right now. It looks so lovely and full of potential. Apartment living is ok, but I want a garden too!!!

Mayumi said...

seriously, i keep going back and forth between jealousy and slapping myself because you sooo deserve this beautiful, beautiful life, and so therefore i don't want to covet it from you at all, i want you just to have it, happily, and live it, gorgeously.

i am so confused.

coffeetime!!!!

may

Unknown said...

Jenjen: I am bringing you both plum tortes on Tuesday.

May: You are very sweet. Don't slap yourself, because otherwise I will have to slap myself silly for all the time I spend coveting your glamorous life in NY and the super-cool sounding grad program in Vermont, and all the fun places you get to shop and eat, and the fact that you are going to make a brilliant career being creative, and that you get to tell people you are a writer. *sigh* and *slapslap*

Moreover, you are both welcome to come and stay anytime, for as long as your schedule permits. I seriously want to get a cool vintage RV and rig it up as a pretty guest cottage. We have all the hookups for one. That would be awesome.

x's and o's to you both.

Unknown said...

***correction***
Jam Guy has informed me that he did not make that pitcher; it was made by Charlie, a pottery teacher in PA.

also: the mirror above the dresser in the pic was a gift to JG from his mom, who refinished it for him.